4 Steps That I and Other White People Can Take to Fight Racism
George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. Trayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. Oscar Grant. Sandra Bland. Walter Scott. Philando Castile. Eric Garner.
These names serve as a reminder of how much work we still have to do as a society to fight against racism.
People’s lives are literally at risk.
Racism can be insidious as actions demonstrated by the recent viral video of Amy Cooper, a White woman, who weaponized racism against a Black man, Christian Cooper (not related), who was bird watching in the park. This confrontation apparently began when Christian simply asked Amy to follow park rules and put a leash on her dog. She then proceeded to call the police and claimed he was threatening herself and her dog.
Rather than feeling hopeless that racism is still ever-present, I hope you are inspired to take action.
White people can and must do better.
This leads to an important question: What can White people do to fight racism?
I am by no means an expert on this subject, and I also recognize the answer to this question is subjective. Over the last 15-plus years, I’ve been on a journey to become a better ally, and it’s a journey that continues.
When I started down this path, I didn’t know where to begin. I also wasn’t sure what role was even appropriate for me to play. It has been a path that has, at times, led to more questions than answers.
I hope that sharing the following steps that I’ve taken thus far to educate myself, along with the anti-racism resources that I and others have found to be helpful, may assist you on your journey:
Understand What White Privilege Really Means
I recognize the word “privilege” can make some people feel uncomfortable. However, as White people living in the United States, we all benefit from a certain level of privilege. Examples of this privilege include:
- We are privileged in that we don’t have to fear for our lives when we interact with the police. Here’s the data on the likelihood of being killed by the police, broken down by race, based on a study by Edwards, Lee, and Esposito.
- We are privileged in that we don’t have to fear for our children’s lives when they walk or run down the street. My friend recently shared this heartbreaking article exploring a mother’s fear of her child being perceived as a threat because of his skin color.
- We are privileged in that our cultural names are less likely to influence whether we’re given the opportunity to interview for certain jobs. According to this study by Quillian, Pager, Hexel, and Midtbøen, “Since 1989, Whites receive on average 36% more callbacks than African Americans, and 24% more callbacks than Latinos.”
- We are privileged because assumptions and opinions about us are not based on the color of our skin. The results of this research study by Harrison and Thomas suggest that skin color is regarded more highly than one’s educational background and prior work experience.
The term “White privilege” is nuanced, and it is not meant to say that successful White people do not work hard or earn their accomplishments. Rather, we have an advantage throughout our lives because we are White.
I especially appreciate the following quote from this Teaching Tolerance article that explores the term and its true meaning:
“White privilege is not just the power to find what you need in a convenience store or to move through the world without your race defining your interactions. It’s not just the subconscious comfort of seeing a world that serves you as normal. It’s also the power to remain silent in the face of racial inequity. It’s the power to weigh the need for protest or confrontation against the discomfort or inconvenience of speaking up. It’s getting to choose when and where you want to take a stand. It’s knowing that you and your humanity are safe.”
It is important to become aware of the fact that inequality is deeply entrenched throughout our systems, and these systems operate to our advantage.
To change these systems, we must consciously choose to take action.
Recognize Unconscious Bias
I distinctly remember sitting in my first college class focused on exploring the history of racism when my teacher stood up and declared, “Every single one of us in this classroom is racist.”
It was an uncomfortable moment.
Up until that point, I would have vehemently denied that I was in any way racist. However, the teacher was correct.
Bias is a reality and, according to this 2004 study by Dasgupta, research suggests that bias affects our behavior. Thankfully, our bias can be malleable, based on the results of a research study conducted in 2013 by Dasgupta and Greenwald.
Given this, it’s important to become aware of the ways in which we are unconsciously biased. Ask yourself:
- How do you perceive other races or cultures?
- What assumptions might you be making about other people subconsciously?
- How might your beliefs affect the decisions you make?
To go a step further, I highly recommend reading the book Overcoming Bias by Dr. Tiffany Jana. It does a fantastic job pointing out the complexity of bias and shares helpful exercises and activities to help people counteract the bias in which we all have to intentionally work to overcome.
Here are additional resources to help you tackle implicit or unconscious bias:
- Racialequitytools.org pulled together this comprehensive list of resources focused on implicit bias
- Northwestern University’s list of resources on unconscious bias
- Nine resources for teaching about unconscious bias
- Resources to fight racism and bias from the nonprofit organization RespectAbility
By proactively working to recognize our biases, we can be more conscious about the decisions we make.
Learn About the History of Systemic Racism and Its Impact on Society Today
Race is a social construct. This article by Ta-Nehisi Coates for the Atlantic explores the nuances of what this actually means.
Scientifically, it is estimated that we are 99.9% genetically the same as a human race, according to the National Genome Institute of Research. The only reasons various races look different is based on where our ancestors lived and the weather they had to endure, which their outer appearance adjusted to.
Racism was created as a tool to divide us and to justify the treatment of certain people as “other.” By taking the time to understand the history of racism, you will gain a better understanding of how we got to where we are today. The United States’ history, when written by White people, began when Christopher Columbus “discovered” North America—even though it was already inhabited by Indigenous people.
Our capitalistic society greatly benefitted from the wealth created by slavery.
For Black Americans, even after slavery was abolished, segregation and systemic racism led to housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and the creation of the school-to-prison pipeline.
In addition to taking multiple college classes that explored the complex, multi-cultural history of racism, I attended a training hosted by the Racial Equity Institute (REI) that provided an eye-opening history of racism and systemic inequality. REI believes it is important to first understand racism before you can begin to dismantle it.
If you’re interested in REI’s trainings, here are their upcoming scheduled workshops and here is information about their process as well as how to become a workshop host.
Here are additional resources to understand the history of racism and its ongoing impacts:
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
- Ava Duvernay’s Netflix documentary, 13th
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
- New York Times Magazine 1619 Project created to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the center of our national narrative
- The PBS Series: Race — The Power of an Illusion
- The PBS Series: Unnatural Causes… is inequality making us sick?
- Season 2 of the SceneOnRadio podcast is an eye-opening exploration of Whiteness in America. This Peabody-nominated podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University features sound bites from one of the Racial Equity Institute’s trainings.
Become an Ally
To effect systemic change, we all must ultimately become anti-racist allies.
When I first became interested in understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion, I initially felt unsure of my role as a White person in the work to dismantle racism.
If no one has invited you to join the fight yet, please consider this your official invitation to become an ally.
While we did not personally create the systems that led to systemic racism, it’s up to all of us to work together to correct our systems that support white supremacy.
As I have worked to become a better ally, I’ve begun to ask myself questions about the systems in which I live and I serve:
- Do the organizations I work in and with reflect the diversity of my community, at all levels of the organization?
- Is my organization’s culture one that is currently capable of being inclusive to all people?
- When my organization hires for new roles, do we interview a diverse set of candidates?
- Do I, as an individual, have a personal network that is diverse (keeping in mind that employee referrals are the top source for hires)?
- Whenever I host events, do I make sure we have a diverse set of speakers?
By asking these questions I have become more conscious in the decisions I make as a leader.
As a White woman, I also recognize that I have been made aware of a unique form of privilege. Amy Cooper isn’t the only recent example of a White woman who has used her privilege to try to harm People of Color. You might recall that in 2018, a White woman called the police at a Starbucks and had two Black men arrested. This incident led Starbucks to close its 8,000 stores to educate employees about racial bias.
Soon after the Starbucks incident, I read this article that explores the weary weaponizing of White women’s tears. It’s a challenging read, but an important one. I shared the article with my network with the hope that it might help others become more self-aware.
Beyond the small steps I’ve taken over many years, I know that I still have a lot of listening, learning, and reading to do to continue to become a better ally and to fully grasp what roles I can play to support the work that is needed to dismantle White supremacy, colonialism, and the patriarchy.
While this article focuses heavily on the racism experienced by Black Americans, it’s also important to note that racism impacts all People of Color in our country — from the persecution of Muslim people since the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the overt acts of racism that Asian Americans are experiencing in light of the pandemic.
There are many resources available to help you become a better ally:
- Guidelines for Being Strong White Allies created by Paul Kivel that stem from years of conversations with people of color about what kinds of support they need from white allies.
- Dismantle Collective’s list of Resources for White Allies.
- A fantastic Medium article, written by Corinne Shutack, that shares “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice.”
- A compilation of anti-racism resources for White people by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein.
- An article by Ibram X. Kendi that maps out an entire antiracist syllabus.
- Information about joining a White caucus.
- If you’re a leader at any type of organization that is seeking to become more inclusive, consider hiring a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert. TMI Consulting, based in Richmond, Virginia, is a Certified B Corporation and an international leader in helping organizations become more inclusive.
- There are many books you can read to help you become a better ally. In addition to Overcoming Bias, Dr. Tiffany Jana has written other fantastic books including Erasing Institutional Bias: How to Create Systematic Change, and Subtle Acts of Exclusion: How to Understand, Identify, and Stop Microaggressions. The next three books on my reading list that come highly recommended are White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DeAngelo, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and How to Be an AntiRacist by Ibram X. Kendi.
- If you are a parent, raise your children to not fear people of color and to understand racism. Here’s an article with a plethora of resources to help parents raise antiracist children.
I am confident that there are many additional resources available to help people on this journey, and it would be fantastic if you can share any resources that you recommend in the response section below.
Once you embark on the path to becoming an ally, it’s important to know that you will likely make mistakes. I fully own that I’m a work in progress.
I’ve started to write articles similar to this one in the past and never ended up finalizing them. If I’m being completely honest, a large part of my hesitation to write about racism has stemmed from the fear of somehow “getting it wrong.” I was afraid I might offend someone, use the wrong language, or accidentally be disrespectful in some way.
Rationally, I recognize that I need to set aside my own fears and needs when the reality is that systemic racism is claiming people’s lives. Rationally, I want to do everything in my power to ensure that all people are treated equally. But as humans, we aren’t rational. I want to be fully transparent about my fears because I suspect that fear gets in the way for many of us.
Here’s the thing: It is entirely likely that I got something wrong in this article, and this will not be the first or the last time that I will make a mistake.
Don’t let fear be an excuse for inaction.
Start where you are and have the humility to learn how to do better one step at a time. Do the research. Make time to listen and learn. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or shy from challenging conversations. Be bold enough to speak up.
Through our collective action, we can create systemic change.
B the Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
